For Tomorrow
by Systemic Anomaly
Summary: Sometimes, the greatest strength lies in losing control: and the greatest love lies in sharing that loss. Short, heart-deep "mini-fic" that cuts to the heart of absolute, unquestioning loyalty, and the unexpected ways one proves it. TrinityNeo.


**Title:** For Tomorrow

**Pairing:** Trinity/Neo

**Rating:** PG-13, just for brief tasteful sex reference. The lowest I've ever written, I think.

**Warnings: ** None really. You'd have to read far between the lines to find it.

**A/N:** This is an excerpt, the edited end of a far longer story that I had written all in a rush, posted here, and then promptly took down within fifteen minutes because it was too personal. But I had to post at least _this_ much: I was far too... moved... by it not to. (Don't worry, it stands alone.) Sometimes everyone has to lose control for a little while. It doesn't matter who you are.

This is for someone who knows who they are.

Feedback will embarrass me, but is, as always, absolutely lovely. **(EDIT: It took me three damn tries to upload this correctly in order to separate the notes from the story. Apologies to anyone trying to read it during this ridiculous process...)**

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The floodgates are open now, and she knew that too: he has curled into himself, nearly fetal in an unconscious imitation of newborn life, of pod life. Something has opened horribly in his stomach, in the hollow of his chest, all the fear and doubt and frustration and self-loathing for impulses that he knows he can't deny, that are even, perhaps, natural, but that still secretly disgust him.... all the middle-of-the-night tremors and terrors as he watches her sleep and hates the world that has forced her to become a warrior so soon, so young, so beautiful... all the pressures and self-hatred and that feeling of dirt... all the guilt for behaving the way he had because he can't stop himself, is unable to stop, is unable to slow down and he knows now how much that hurts her, how scared she is... how hard it was for her to open to him and how hard it would be...

_"I'm sorry," _he sobs as she releases him, a flood of tears that no one would ever see him shed otherwise -- for himself, for her, for all of them. _"I'm sorry, Trin, I'm so sorry, Oh my God, please, I'm sorry...."_

_"Shhhh," _She had immediately set it aside, knowing this, waiting for it, sensing that whatever it was ran deeper than just helping him remember to take better care of himself, to sleep when he needed it, to slow down once in a while -- if not for his own sake, then for hers... she pulls his legs up, somehow managing to cradle his longer body, wrapping an arm around his neck and pressing his face to her chest, mindless of the salt of his tears that were soaking her clean dry nightshirt. Holding him to her, and he unconsciously draws up his knees as she rocks him. _"Shhh, Neo, shhh, it's okay, I'm here, okay? It's all right, shhh."_

And he clings to her and sobs it all out: his fear, his doubt, his night terrors, the trigger pulled, the dam opened. No dirt in letting it all go. No judgement.

Only love.

She knows that he knows he overstepped, and Christ, she knows that he's sorry -- and she also knows that he has been bottling up so much inside himself that he's been pushing her away, refusing to admit it, and provoking her simply because he doesn't know how to admit to being scared. She gauges it, waits, keeps track silently; knowing that sometimes it's not simply being forgetful, that sometimes it's far more than that -- and it's deliberate; testing the limits. Pushing the envelope. Trying to see if his entire life is as far out of control -- in the real world -- as he sometimes feels it is.

She will never let him go over the edge.

Morpheus aside, she sometimes, in her secret heart, thinks she'd burn the city to ashes before she would.

They do not have a 'dominant/submissive' relationship. She does not threaten him with impunity. It is not, as they've both heard cage-crews in the loading docks snicker about when they thought they wouldn't be overheard -- particularly by the couple in question -- the fact that Neo is 'whipped'. They have their mild disagreements like anyone else(and have, once or twice, fought loudly and enthusiastically). But sometimes, when the world needs and expects Neo to be as tightly wound as one of the Neb's engine coils, breaking down and letting go are physically impossible.

Until she makes him.

Trust like this exists with no one else.

It is a measure of their loyalty.

And then, later, when his tears have quieted and the necessary humiliation of it has worn off, when he has allowed himself to become that man again, when the pulse of her heartbeat in her skin echoes in his trembling nerves and she no longer needs to shush him with words, only breath, and fingers, and lips, when the dirt and blackness that have been clogging his soul have washed out and there is only _her, _the seven-letter prayer on his lips, the word that makes him lift himself up from concrete and pavement and brick and blood, when the whole world has resolved itself to just this and only this, when it's memories of throbbing bass and gun oil and copper-throated redemption, the scent of PVC and rain, when the yellow light reflected in yellow deposits of gleaming stone casts her profile in gold and his name takes on that breathless nasal tone -- an 'N', perhaps, slurring more into a 'd', the last vowels oh-so-sweetly gasped -- when he has taken back his role, cradling her in his arms and rocking her as the thrumbling hum of machinery vibrates the walls and tears mix with sweat and at last he breathes into her mouth----

----when it's finally over and done, and they're entwined and silent and sated, and his pride is dusted off and undamaged and his soul a little quieter, when his mind is seemingly clearer, when he is more aware of his actions, more open to himself, more focused, free of the debris he's been carrying around like a suitcase chained to his soul.... then, their eyes close, and his body relaxes, and the fight remains.

For tomorrow.


End file.
